Xia Yang's smile is full of sunshine and vitality, and her person, just like her name, gives people a warm feeling.
Liu Gen stared blankly at Xia Yang's clean cheeks and thought: She must wash her face every day. If Liu Zhi could have enough water to wash her face every day, she would be as beautiful as her.
Xia Yang noticed that Liu Gen's eyes were staring at him in a daze, and his pink face was flushed. He lowered his head, touched his cheek with his palm, and asked softly: "Brother Liu Gen, are there any traces of sweat flowing on my face?"
Liu Gen thought Xia Yang was asking him to check if there were any traces of sweat on his face, so he put his head close to Xia Yang's cheek, looked left and right more carefully and said, "No, it's pretty good."
Xia Yang thought Liu Gen was teasing him, so he pushed Liu Gen's arm with his palm: "You are bad..."
Liu Gen's arm felt like an electric shock. In that second, from the place where Xia Yang's palm touched, it quickly spread throughout his body, and he really looked forward to her hand touching him again.
"Haha..." Liu Gen said with a smile, "You are the first girl to say that I am bad."
"What did girls say about you in the past?" Xia Yang asked, looking sideways at Liu Gen.
"When I was in elementary school, a girl said I was stupid. When I was in junior high school, a girl said I was stupid. When I got to high school, a girl from the county said I was stupid, haha... Now that I am going to college, I have another one.
Bad." Liu Gen said cheerfully.
Xia Yang covered his mouth with his hand and smiled, and said: "You are a stupid, stupid and bad boy, but you are quite popular with girls."
Liu Gen was stunned and didn't understand what Xia Yang meant. He blinked his eyes twice and asked, "Do you girls like boys who are stiff, naive, stupid and bad?"
Liu Gen's honest expression and the left side of his face covered with band-aids made Xia Yang giggle like a clown.
The two people's pleasant chatting and joking brought the countryside and the city closer together. Liu Gen seemed to have integrated into the lives of city people, no longer feeling lonely and strange.
This is the first time Liu Gen feels like a city dweller.
Xia Yang went to the bathroom, cleaned the stainless steel lunch box, put it in the plastic bag she brought and said, "Brother Liu Gen, there are instant noodles and snacks for the road. Because the barreled instant noodles take up too much space, I bought the bagged ones."
Yes, this lunch box can be used as instant noodles on the road and as a lunch box at school..."
Xia Yang's words reminded Liu Gen of her mother's endless chatter when she went out to prepare for him, for fear of leaking something.
"Brother Liu Gen, what's wrong with you?" Xia Yang saw Liu Gen looking at him with tears in his eyes, "Oh, it's nothing, it's just that my eyes are a little astringent." Liu Gen quickly stepped over and quietly wiped away the tears that were about to flow out.
"Do you miss your mother?" Xia Yang asked softly.
Liu Gen was shocked. How could Xia Yang see what he was thinking? He turned his head and asked sheepishly: "How did you see it?"
"Because...I..." Xia Yang's eyes turned red, and he shed two tears: "I miss my mother too..."
When Xia Yang cried like this, Liu Gen looked a little flustered and didn't know how to persuade her: "Xia Yang... I... I'm sorry... I shouldn't have let you... remind you of your mother..."
Xia Yang took out a tissue, wiped away the tears from the corner of his eyes, sniffed and said, "I don't blame you, sometimes I always miss my mother for no reason. I saw the tears in your eyes, and for some reason, suddenly
I feel like you miss your mother too."
"Do you feel uncomfortable having to leave your mother tomorrow?" Liu Gen asked with a smile.
Xia Yang shook his head, his beautiful eyes still full of tears and said: "How I wish that like others, my mother would send me to the station when I go to college elsewhere, but I will never have a mother to send me to the station again... She...
...He has left me...for a long, long time..." Xia Yang's tears were like broken pearls, rolling down from the corners of her eyes.
"Your mother..." Liu Gen guessed from Xia Yang's tears.
Xia Yang wiped the corners of his eyes with a tissue again and said: "When I was six years old, my mother went on a business trip to Nanhai City and never came back. I still remember the night before she went on a business trip, my mother was wearing beautiful pajamas and sitting with me
The fairy tale about the fox pretending to be dead in the snow to steal fish was told to me by the bedside. At that time, my mother gently stroked my hair with her hands and said that the fox lay on the snow and pretended to be dead despite the cold in order to feed the few at home.
Little Naliehu... When I woke up the next day, my grandparents told me that my father had gone to the airport to see my mother off. I pouted and said to my grandparents, 'I haven't said goodbye to my mother yet.'...No.
Thinking of what I said... If I knew my mother would never come back, I wouldn't have said those words even if I were beaten to death... After a long time, about a year, my father, after being pressed by me crying many times, said,
Only then did I tell the truth. It turned out that my mother’s business trip to the South China Sea was to secretly investigate child trafficking organizations, and my mother is a reporter.”
At this point, Xia Yang stopped crying and seemed to feel very proud that her mother was a reporter. She continued to slowly tell Liu Gen her mother's story:
"I heard from my father and my mother's colleagues that my mother had tracked down the trafficking gang in Nanhai and the whereabouts of more than a dozen children abducted from our province. She hadn't even had time to report the case to the local police. It wasn't like that at that time.
Communication is now so convenient. My mother was murdered in the hotel where she was staying, and the camera and film she carried were also taken away... So far, the murderer has not been caught. My father has been on business trips to the South China Sea in recent years.
He will fight for every opportunity he gets. I know my father does this for my mother... My father is also a reporter."
Liu Gen listened quietly, his heart aching like a knife. He felt sad that Xia Yang had lost his mother since he was a child. He felt that he was happier than Xia Yang. At least, his parents were still alive.
Xia Yang continued: "Originally, I wanted to apply for a medical school and become a doctor in the future, because my grandparents and father were not in good health. However, when I filled out my application for the college entrance examination, my father asked me to apply for the journalism and media major.
I will be a reporter in the future. I disagreed at the time and argued with my father. Finally, my father said to me with tears in his eyes, "Xia Yang, it was your mother's wish that you become a reporter. After you were born, your
My mother said that in the future, I want you to be a journalist with a sense of justice and cry out for the many people living at the bottom. So, I followed my mother’s last wish and applied for the journalism and media major at Nanhai University.”
"Xia Yang, you are so strong." These were the only words Liu Gen could say to comfort Xia Yang.
"Brother Liu Gen, what about you? Why did you choose the seven-year bachelor's and master's program in clinical medicine? Generally, undergraduate studies only require four years, which means you have three more years of study than others." Xia Yang said.
What it means is that the major chosen by Liu Gen will require three more years of tuition. She has already seen that Liu Gen's family is not very well off, but he chose to study hard for seven years. Xia Yang is particularly interested in the reason here.
Perhaps she inherited the characteristics of her parents' profession.
Liu Gen took a deep breath, smiled and said: "This is my own decision. This decision was made when I was a freshman in high school. In the summer of that year, during the summer vacation after my junior high school graduation, my father
After he fell to the ground, my mother and I carried my father on a door panel for more than 20 miles along the mountain road to the township health center. After examination by the doctor, he was initially diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver and asked us to send him to the county hospital for treatment.
Further examination and treatment... The county hospital confirmed that my father did have cirrhosis of the liver. The doctor said it was incurable and could only be controlled so that the condition would not worsen and the parts of the liver that were not damaged by others would worsen... Since then, my father has not left.
After taking medicine, western medicine was too expensive. In order to save money, my father took Chinese medicine every day. I watched my father, who was as tall as a mountain, lose weight day by day, but I couldn't do anything for him... Just like this, I vowed to learn how to learn in the future.
Doctor, cure my father's disease. For this goal, my spare time has almost nothing else except playing football. I study when others are playing. Every weekend, usually after school on Friday, I also
I have to ride a bicycle back from the county town to help my mother with some farm work. We are short of water there. Before I return to the county town, I have to fill the two water tanks at home, enough for the family for a week, and then when the sun is about to set on Sunday
, I got on my bicycle and rushed to the county town. Every time I returned to school just before dawn... Haha... For three years, no matter it was cold winter, wind and rain or hot summer, every week, I rushed to the county town with
The dirt road that connects my home. Many times, when I am too tired and weak, I will think of my goal. It can be said that it was the goal I set in my freshman year of high school to study medicine that supported me and never stopped.
.However, the moment I got the notice, I had the idea of giving up."
"Why? How can you give up just because you've worked so hard for it?" Xia Yang asked with tears in his eyes when he heard Liu Gen's words about giving up after getting the notice.
"Because the fees listed in the notice, such as tuition fees, luggage fees, accommodation fees, physical examination fees, military training fees, etc. were all calculated, I was shocked. That number is simply an astronomical figure for my family!
Liu Gen's expression was solemn: "As for my father, he has basically lost his ability to work. There are only my mother and my younger sister Liu Zhi at home. I'm worried that if I go to college, my mother will be exhausted and my sister Liu Zhi will also suffer from this."
And dropped out of school..."
Xia Yang pursed her lips tightly, her eyes filled with tears, and looked at the tears that were about to fall from Liu Gen's eyes. From Liu Gen's story, she could understand the kind of life he lived.
At this time, the waiting hall was almost full of people. Most of them were parents sending their children to college. Everyone was surrounded by large and small bags. Everyone had a happy smile on their face, talking and talking.
Laughing, the parents sending their children off asked each other what university and major their children had studied in. The huge waiting hall was bustling with people and a mess. No one paid attention to Liu Gen and Xia Yang. In the eyes of these happy and smiling people,